Interim director for probation department wants fast turnaround

By Brian Rogers |
October 5, 2012
| Updated: October 5, 2012 10:07pm

Helen Harberts, interim director of the Harris County Probation Department, says she'll use "secret shoppers" to be sure tests are legitimate.

Helen Harberts is serious, yet jocular while showing pictures of a mail-order device that looks like male genitalia and is used to conceal and then dispense "clean" urine during drug tests.

"The Whizzanator comes in five different skin colors," the interim director of Harris County's troubled probation department told a courtroom packed with more than 100 employees Friday. "They look like the real thing. There's another brand that you can use ink on, so if someone has a tattoo on their …" Her voice trailed off.

Although explaining how to best watch probationers urinate in a cup is awkward and outlandish at best, Harberts has taken on the serious job of fixing an agency plagued with long-standing and widespread problems.

And she is resolute when she says the office may be back on track by the end of the month.

"My target is November 1," Harberts said. "I hope I can get everything up and running and be able to submit evidence that I'm comfortable having my name on by November 1."

"That's very ahead of schedule," Velasquez said. "She's doing a really great job."

'Horrifying' problems

The district attorney's office stopped using the agency's drug test results as evidence in August after a three-day hearing at which widespread problems were revealed. Those issues included lax supervision of the tests and slipshod custody of the samples. Another problem noted was faulty database entry, resulting in probationers being saddled with incorrect test results.

The agency's previous director, who oversaw more than 800 employees and a $70 million budget, resigned after judges called for his ouster.

The problems, which Harberts called "horrifying," were immediately evident to her when she took the helm Sept. 21 with a six-month contract.

"I have structural problems, training problems, almost every type of problem lumped in here," Harberts said. "I have to fix facilities and structures, methodology, and we need to broaden the scope of our testing; it was not sufficient."

The biggest change, Harberts said, is the testing of urine for the presence of alcohol. In the past, probation officers just used breath-testing machines.

The probation officers, she said, knew that suspects awaiting trial on bail, as well as probationers, were getting away with drinking.

Other changes, Harberts said, match the scientific and testing protocols across the country but are expected to be a shock to probationers.

"Everyone is going to have to drop their drawers," Harberts said. "Women are going to have to do the squat and cough."

Scientific standards

Harberts expects challenges from defense lawyers and from the people being tested, but said close examination is necessary to prevent surreptitious efforts to beat the tests.

"If you don't understand the disease of addiction, it seems severe," she told the group. "If you understand the disease, you understand this."

She also said she plans to hire "secret shoppers" to be tested to make sure her employees are following the protocols.

"When you test someone, you should just assume they work for me," Harberts told the group.

Besides retraining all of the technicians and probation officers, Harberts is making threshold levels in drug tests more stringent.

Because drug tests are more sophisticated than "positive or negative," probation departments have to specify a number in the range where the amount of a substance is considered a "positive" test. Harberts said the new levels line up with the scientifically accepted standards, like those used in federal drug testing.

Ignore past results

For example, she said, the number of people who have occasionally smoked marijuana without getting in trouble in the past will probably start testing positive for the drug.

Harberts said she wants to help people who are losing their grip on sobriety from falling back into their old habits.

"This is not about 'gotcha,' " she said. "This is about helping people resist cravings and work their programs."

Harberts, who spent 25 years in criminal justice in California before retiring last year, showed the group a letter from an unnamed probationer whose addictions eventually landed him in prison.

He wrote that he drank alcohol, smoked marijuana and used methamphetamine every weekend and never got caught by his probation officer, but still ended up behind bars.